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IOC Social Media: From Russia with Likes

18/02/2014

A conversation of Olympic proportions is taking place on the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s social media platforms, thanks in large part to a rapidly growing presence in the home country of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Russians are some of the most engaged people in the world when it comes to social media, spending, according to some accounts, over six hours a month on Russian social network VKontakte (VK) alone. And they are loving their first social media Games. Twenty per cent of the 100 million monthly active users on the platform engage with the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, and were responsible for 17 million mentions of the Games on VK during the first week of competition.

With 2.7 million fans, the IOC's Olympic page on VK has become the most popular official community page in the world among Russian-speaking fans. Thousands of Russians have been cheering for their athletes, and the IOC has been sharing their photos live in the Medals Plaza and at other live sites across Russia. It is the first time that user-generated content has been shared within an Olympic venue.

“We’re extremely pleased with the numbers,” said IOC Director of Communications Mark Adams. “The IOC’s presence on social media has grown incredibly quickly since the start of Sochi 2014, especially here in Russia, and this is partly due to the rise in mobile use around the world.”

Olympic Athletes’ Hub

The Olympic Athletes' Hub recorded over 40,000 updates from Olympians, teams and National Olympic Committees in the first week of the Games. Olympians have been engaging in fun and interactive ways by taking photos and sharing them on social media. Over 1,700 photos have been taken at the Games so far and can be viewed on facebook.com/olympics. With 1,500 Sochi 2014 Olympians and over 6,000 Olympians from past Games, the Olympic Athletes' Hub has become the reference point for connecting with athletes in social media.

The Hub has been receiving great praise from the athletes in Sochi. “The app is awesome,” said US hockey player Brianna Decker. “It is easily accessible and a great way for Olympians to connect with other Olympians and have fans connect with Olympians. It’s also great to have thousands of Olympians involved with this app and know that they are truly who they claim to be.”

“When we use the Hub we know that these Olympians’ accounts are real and we are certain who we follow is the real deal,” said Norwegian figure skater Anne Line Gjersem, echoing Decker’s comments about the fact that accounts of the Olympians on the Hub are all verified to protect against fakes.

Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo

In the lead-up to the Games, the IOC's Facebook page grew by more than 2 million fans. In the first seven days of the Games the page gained close to 1 million new fans. During the same period, Facebook reported that 24 million people were talking about the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games on its platform.

The IOC Twitter account, meanwhile, has added 1 hundred thousand new followers since the start of the Games. According to Hootsuite, 6.5 million mentions of the Olympic Games were made on Twitter during the first week of competition.

In the past 30 days, 1.2 billion impressions have been recorded on IOC-led accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

There has been great interest surrounding Sochi 2014 in other parts of the world as well. In China, for example, the IOC's Sina Weibo account grew by 849,752 fans, and there were almost 12.5 million mentions of the hashtag sochi2014 during the first week alone.

The total global fan base of the IOC now stands at 33.9 million subscribers.